CHAPTER 14 Roland Minnerath, The Right to Autonomy in Internal Religious Affairs
Archbishop Roland Minnerath’s chapter on The Right to Autonomy in Religious Affairs addresses the general right of religious communities and institutions to autonomy in structuring their own affairs. It thus elaborates one of the ideas belonging to the normative core of freedom of religion or belief as described earlier in this introduction. It also correlates in significant ways with the idea of sphere sovereignty elaborated in the chapter by van der Vyver. 62 Not surprisingly, then, Minnerath finds the autonomy of religious or belief communities to structure their own affairs to be “one of the crucial features of any system of freedom of religion or belief.”63 This is because the ecclesiastical or social structures of such communities are often “themselves the focus of deeply held beliefs.”64 Without this right, therefore, religious authenticity would be compromised and communal autonomy impaired. Because the religious life of individuals is generally interwoven with the broader life of a religious community, breaches of religious autonomy will violate not only collective and institutional rights, but individual rights as well.
Minnerath maintains that the boundary of religious autonomy goes “beyond matters that are strictly internal to the life of a religious community”65 to include a broader range of the community’s “own affairs”—i.e., the realm over which the state has no competence. Minnerath traces the grounds for the right to religious autonomy in the classic human rights instruments, and shows how these guarantee the corporate right of religious organizations to exist and to be protected in their internal autonomy. Through a detailed historical analysis of various models of autonomy, including a careful analysis of developments in the United States,66 Europe,67 and the European Court of Human Rights68 dealing with disputes within religious communities, the author shows how autonomy has emerged as a right in both constitutional and international law. Minnerath then demonstrates how the right to autonomy applies with respect to matters of doctrine and teaching; faith and order; freedom in appointing, disciplining, and dismissing religious personnel; and the operation of charitable and educational organizations.
63 Minnerath, chapter 14, 291.
64 Ibid.
65 Ibid., 292.
66 Ibid., 296–300.
67 Ibid., 305–09.
68 Ibid., 309–14.
